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She blinked hard, then down at their entwined hands. It was true, her spirit still raged inside her even after the night she’d had. She felt sorry for her mum, angry at her dad, proud of Cameron. So she might not be broken. But that didn’t mean that the cracks didn’t feel like they were being held together with old gum.
‘Cameron—’
‘Cam,’ he said, cutting her off. ‘Those closest to me call me Cam.’
Her eyes were drawn back to his like magnets to steel. His smile remained, urged her to really listen. He was telling her that she was his glue. That he considered her a person close to him. That, even after she’d run scared the night before, he was still here.
Rosie felt the moment heave between them, draw breath and wait. Her world, her universe, her past, present and future felt as though they were teetering on her next words.
‘Cam,’ she said on a release of breath—and the smile that had been hovering on the corner of his mouth broke free, beaming as bright as morning sunshine, until all she could do was bask in the glow.
‘Yes, Rosie?’
‘Actually,’ she said, ‘I don’t so much mind if you call me Rosalind.’
His brow furrowed, and she didn’t blame him. She wasn’t sure where she was heading either. Her mind was a blank page, untinged by history or expectation. All she could do was anchor herself in the warmth of his hand wrapped around hers and give him as good as he’d given her.
She snuck a foot beneath her and faced him. ‘I am Rosie. Rosie who camps out in a van, loves comfortable boots, clothes with a past, and sleeps when regular sorts are awake and vice versa. But since I met you…’
Her voice caught.
‘Since I met you, Rosalind—the girl I was, the version of myself I kept at bay all these years—came back. That part of me craved affection, wanted nothing more than to feel special, wanted to know what it was like to be the centre of someone’s attention. Rosalind isn’t afraid to hope.’
His other hand lifted off his thigh. She held a finger near his lips. He held his breath and stared at it. Though she had no idea what was coming next, all she could do was let the flood of words carry her til she found land.
‘Since I met you, since I met your friends and your family, I finally knew what it must be like to have kinship—be a part of a collective spirit, of something enveloping, warm, vital. Watching you, Meg, Dylan and Brendan mucking about with your dad’s cake, I would have given my left leg to have been allowed into that inner sanctum for just one more day. I hope you understand, I had to, have to, walk away. Taking it away from me any later would have been too much to ask.’
‘Who’s asking?’ he asked, his voice deep, warm, encouraging.
Then the edge of his mouth kicked up into the whisper of a smile. His thumb found her palm and began running up and down the centre, sending goose bumps all around her body, inside and out.
She closed her fingers around his thumb and twisted it away. ‘I…I’m not exactly sure what you’re intimating. In all honesty, I’m kind of hazy about a lot of things right now. I’ve been up all night. I’m wearing someone else’s pyjamas. I haven’t showered.’
He took her hand back in his, turned it over and pressed his warm lips upon her palm. ‘You smell great.’
A slow build of warmth settled low in her stomach. ‘I smell like milk-bottle lollies and mothballs.’
‘You smell like you.’
The warmth began to seep into her limbs, into her head, giving her ideas that maybe, just maybe, the only thing she’d left behind at the party had been him.
‘Cameron,’ she breathed.
He held up a finger to her lips, not stopping short, letting the calloused tip brush against her soft mouth.
‘Rosalind,’ he said, her name rolling off his tongue as poetically as it was meant to be. ‘One of the many things I have long since found so irresistible about you is that, while you are such a champion of human frailty, you are determined to deny your own.’
‘I don’t. I—’
‘Shush. Really. For your own good. It’s my turn again.’
He took a deep breath and let it out through his nose, and Rosie realised that he wasn’t just tired—he was nervous. He was wide open and unguarded. She opened her ears and listened.
‘The night I suggested we slow things down…’ He waited for her to nod along, his hand again holding hers tight. ‘I was following a pattern I had followed time and time again. A whiff of getting too close, I put on the brakes. But when you left I realised it wasn’t you getting too close that panicked me, it was me. It was so unanticipated that I took a long, hard look at my life without you in it and I didn’t much care for what I saw.’
